Links and Web Resources

Here are links to various web resources mentioned in The Pragmatic Programmer, broken out into several categories:

Editors
Compilers
Unix for Windows
Version Control
Other Tools
Papers
Miscellaneous Resources

Editors

The Emacs Editor: The ultimate in big editors, containing every feature that any editor has ever had, Emacs has a near-vertical learning curve, but repays handsomely once you’ve mastered it. It also makes a great mail and news reader, address book, calendar and diary, adventure game, ...
The XEmacs Editor: Spawned from the original Emacs some years ago, XEmacs is reputed to have cleaner internals and a better-looking interface.
The Vim Editor: From the documentation: ``There are a lot of enhancements above vi: multi level undo, multi windows and buffers, syntax highlighting, command line editing, filename completion, on-line help, visual selection, etc…’‘
The elvis Editor: An enhanced vi clone with support for X.
The GNU C/C++ Compiler: One of the most popular C and C++ compilers on the planet. It also does Objective-C. (At the time of writing, the egcs project, which previously splintered from gcc, is in the process of merging back into the fold.)
The Java Language from Sun: Home of Java, including downloadable SDKs, documentation, tutorials, news, and more.
Perl Language Home Page: O’Reilly hosts this set of Perl-related resources.
The Python Language: The Python object-oriented programming language is interpreted and interactive, with a slightly quirky syntax and a wide and loyal following.
SmallEiffel: The GNU Eiffel compiler runs on any machine that has an ANSI C compiler and a Posix runtime environment.
ISE Eiffel: Interactive Software Engineering is the originator of Design by Contract, and sells a commercial Eiffel compiler and related tools.
CLU, or Scheme, and to be as efficient as C, C++, or Fortran.
VisualWorks: Home of the VisualWorks Smalltalk environment. Noncommercial versions for Windows and Linux are available for free.
The Squeak Language Environment: Squeak is a freely available, portable implementation of Smalltalk-80 written in itself; it can produce C code output for higher performance.
The TOM Programming Language: A very dynamic language with roots in Objective-C.
The Beowulf Project: A project that builds high-performance computers out of networked clusters of inexpensive Linux boxes.
iContract—-Design by Contract Tool for Java: Design by Contract formalism of preconditions, postconditions, and invariants, implemented as a preprocessor for Java. Honors inheritance, implements existential quantifiers, and more.
Nana—-Logging and Assertions for C and \cplusplus: Improved support for assertion checking and logging in C and C++. It also provides some support for Design by Contract.
DDD—-Data Display Debugger: A free graphical front end for Unix debuggers.
John Brant’s Refactoring Browser: A popular refactoring browser for Smalltalk.
DOC++ is a documentation system for C/C++ and Java that generates both LaTeX and HTML output for sophisticated online browsing of your documentation directly from the C++ header or Java class files.
xUnit—-Unit Testing Framework: A simple but powerful concept, the xUnit unit testing framework provides a consistent platform for testing software written in a variety of languages.
The Tcl Language: Tcl (``Tool Command Language’‘) is a scripting language designed to be easy to embed into an application.
Expect—-Automate Interaction with Programs: An extension built on Tcl , expect allows you to script interaction with programs. As well as helping you write command files that (for example) fetch files from remote servers or extend the power of your shell, expect can be useful when performing regression testing. A graphical version, expectk, lets you wrap non-GUI applications with a windowing front end.
T Spaces: From their Web page: ``T Spaces is a network communication buffer with database capabilities. It enables communication between applications and devices in a network of heterogeneous computers and operating systems. T Spaces provides group communication services, database services, URL-based file transfer services, and event notification services.’‘
javaCC—-Java Compiler-Compiler: A parser generator that is tightly coupled to the Java language.
The bison Parser Generator: bison takes an input grammar specification and generates from it the C source code of a suitable parser.
SWIG—-Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator: SWIG is a software development tool that connects programs written in C, C++, and Objective-C with a variety of high-level programming languages such as Perl, Python, and Tcl/Tk, as well as Java, Eiffel, and Guile.
The Object Management Group, Inc.: The OMG is the steward of various specifications for producing distributed object-based systems. Their work includes the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and the Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP). Combined, these specifications make it possible for objects to communicate with each other, even if they are written in different languages and run on different types of computers.

Unix Tools Under DOS

The UWIN package provides Windows Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) that emulate a large portion of the Unix C level library interface. Using this interface, GTL has ported a large number of Unix command-line tools to Windows. See also .

The Cygwin Tools

The Cygwin package also emulates the the Unix C library interface, and provides a large array of Unix command-line tools under the Windows operating system.

Perl Power Tools

A project to reimplement the classic Unix command set in Perl, making the commands available on all platforms that support Perl (and that’s a lot of platforms).

Source Code Control Tools

RCS—-Revision Control System: GNU source code control system for Unix and Windows NT.
CVS—-Concurrent Version System: Freely available source code control system for Unix and Windows NT. Extends RCS by supporting a client-server model and concurrent access to files.
Aegis Transaction-Based Configuration Management: A process-oriented revision control tool that imposes project standards (such as verifying that checked-in code passes tests).
ClearCase: Version control, workspace and build management, process control.
MKS Source Integrity: Version control and configuration management. Some versions incorporate features allowing remote developers to work on the same files simultaneously (much like CVS).
PVCS Configuration Management: A source code control system, very popular for Windows systems.
Visual SourceSafe: A version control system that integrates with Microsoft’s visual development tools.
Perforce: A client-server software configuration management system.

Other Tools

WinZip—-Archive Utility for Windows

A Windows-based file archive utility. Supports both zip and tar formats.

The Z Shell

A shell designed for interactive use, although it is also a powerful scripting language. Many of the useful features of bash, ksh, and tcsh were incorporated into zsh; many original features were added.

A Free SMB Client for Unix Systems

Samba lets you share files and other resources between Unix and Windows systems. Samba includes:

An SMB server, to provide Windows NT and LAN Manager-style file and print services to SMB clients such as Windows 95, Warp Server, smbfs, and others.
A Netbios nameserver, which among other things gives browsing support. Samba can be the master browser on your LAN if you wish.
An ftp-like SMB client that allows you to access PC resources (disks and printers) from Unix, Netware, and other operating systems.

Papers and Publications

The comp.object FAQ

A substantial and well-organized FAQ for the comp.object newsgroup.

eXtreme Programming

From the Web site: ``In XP, we use a very lightweight combination of practices to create a team that can rapidly produce extremely reliable, efficient, well-factored software. Many of the XP practices were created and tested as part of the Chrysler C3 project, which is a very successful payroll system implemented in Smalltalk.’‘

Alistair Cockburn’s Home Page

Look for ``Structuring Use Cases with Goals’’ and use case templates.

Martin Fowler’s Home Page

Author of Analysis Patterns and co-author of UML Distilled and Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. Martin Fowler’s home page discusses his books and his work with the UML.

Robert C. Martin’s Home Page

Good introductory papers on object-oriented techniques, including dependency analysis and metrics.

Aspect-Oriented Programming

An approach to adding functionality to code, both orthogonally and declaratively.

JavaSpaces Specification

A Linda-like system for Java that supports distributed persistence and distributed algorithms.

Netscape Source Code

The development source of the Netscape browser.

The Jargon File

Definitions for many common (and not so common) computer industry terms, along with a good dose of folklore.

Eric S. Raymond’s Papers

Eric’s papers on The Cathedral and the Bazaar and Homesteading the Noosphere describing the psychosocietal basis for and implications of the Open Source movement.

The K Desktop Environment

From their Web page: ``KDE is a powerful graphical desktop environment for Unix workstations. KDE is an Internet project and truly open in every sense.’‘

The GNU Image Manipulation Program

Gimp is a freely distributed program used for image creation, composition, and retouching.

The Demeter Project

Research focused on making software easier to maintain and evolve using Adaptive Programming.

Miscellaneous

The GNU Project: The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity that raises funds for the GNU project. The GNU project’s goal is to produce a complete, free, Unix-like system. Many of the tools they’ve developed along the way have become industry standards.
Web Server Information: Links to the home pages of over 50 different web servers. Some are commercial products, while others are freely available.